You offer choices A through E. I choose F, as in who the F___ knows. It's time to give up guessing when announced 'products' will actually be available. Put your head in the sand and that way you can be surprised when someone taps you on the shoulder and says, "Here's the new lens from Canon I just bought at the store."

Yeah, and as was mentioned in other threads, they've already missed the key window for a lot of their target audience for this lens. Wedding photogs wanted this a month ago, not in late Fall. So Canon might actually see a lot of people holding off on buying it, just because they can wait and see reviews and decide if its worth it.

I don't want to defend Canon...but..instead of complaining..all I can say is that I have no Idea how difficult it must be to produce such a technically perfect product. It must be incredibly difficult. I just have to be patient. If this lens is going to be in the class of the 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II...(which is what I am hoping for).....I can be patient....I totally disagree with the comment up above that this delay will cause "Canon to miss it's target audience" ....WHAT?....Am I going to run out and buy the Tamron???.....I don't think so. This audience isn't going anywhere.LOL!NOW..Canon...when this lens is FINALLY delivered...how about following it up with an equally perfect 14-24mm f/2.8L lens....in..let's say...two years....We don't want to rush you!

It won't be, it has no IS :-p ... and Canon sure wishes they'd have more forgiving customers like you! As far as I read it, nobody is complaining about them taking to long to produce the mk2 after the mk1 release, but about postponing the release date multiple times - this hasn't got anything to do with difficult or not, but rather with professional management and engineering.

You offer choices A through E. I choose F, as in who the F___ knows. It's time to give up guessing when announced 'products' will actually be available. Put your head in the sand and that way you can be surprised when someone taps you on the shoulder and says, "Here's the new lens from Canon I just bought at the store."

It won't be, it has no IS :-p ... and Canon sure wishes they'd have more forgiving customers like you! As far as I read it, nobody is complaining about them taking to long to produce the mk2 after the mk1 release, but about postponing the release date multiple times - this hasn't got anything to do with difficult or not, but rather with professional management and engineering.

LOL...About the IS part!....and your statement is true enough...THREE ( and who knows Infared there will be even MORE postponements?), delivery dates is a more than a little unprofessional. You are right.

•Five-group zoom positive and negative positive positive and negative •(For Focusing group 2) Inner Focus •(Part 1 of the fourth lens group, anti-vibration unit is L4a) image stabilization •Positive refractive power of the first lens group •The aberration can be corrected and weaken, the lens is larger •Difficult to correct aberration and strengthen

•The amount of movement of the second lens group and one, the first •Must be strengthened to reduce power and refraction, aberration correction is difficult •Diameter of the first lens group becomes larger and more

there is a new 24-70mm f2.8 IS patent from canon. i wonder what will it cost when the non IS version is that expensive.

There were previous rumors of Canon having IS prototypes, but they were said to be too heavy or have not the iq that was required from the update.

As for the final retail cost: it has little to do with the manufacturing cost, but it's as much as Canon can get away with. And for the 24-70ii non-IS, event/wedding pros and enthusiasts are willing to shell out lots of $$$.

With a new version with "amateurish" IS and maybe replacing the 24-105 as the kit lens, the price might be oriented more towards the general dslr crowd and thus not much higher or even lower if the iq is great, but not as stellar as the non-IS.